Owned.
In the wonderful world of Planetarion, a web-based Civilizations-like game that takes place in outer space, my homie Jake and I were really bored. So, we decided to attack some piss-weak planet with about 90% of our combined armada of doom. We sent in 2214 ships ranging from your little dinky ships to EMP-loaded ships to big bruisers. The guy we were attacking didn't have that much of a chance. He had a lot of turrets, but... big deal. He wouldn't for long! :)

So, we sent our our ships and waited for morning.

I logged in, and the two-hour battle totally didn't go as planned. I guess a few of this peon's friends came to his aid, and they totally outnumbered our ships 8 to 1! Things didn't bode well. In fact, we totally got smacked. Of our original 2214 ships, only 661 came back alive. And we only took out 206 enemy ships!

Needless to say, Jake and I aren't attacking anyone else for a while. Trying to recover from such a galactic anal raping is gonna take some time.

If you want to know more about Planetarion (like what the hell do all of the listed ships do), check out the manual.

Speaking of owned, how about them Devils? Nyah.

Uncle Kracker may be a spawn of Satan
I've had my mp3's playing all day and recently, Uncle Kracker's "Yeah Yeah Yeah" song was being played. My mother came into my room to make a quick run through it with the Swiffer, and that "you can tell the whole world they can kiss my ass" line came up in the song. My mother was somewhat shocked. Heh. She found the song to be inappropriate and vulgar and some other negative adjectives. Heh. What I find funny is that I say worse stuff on a daily basis in my house. So does she. :) And that Uncle Kracker song is really laid-back and mellow. She'd flip out if she knew what songs have been playing in modern rock and alternative radio stations across the country. Or how about rap songs? Eek. Even Jennifer Lopez's "Play" is "naughty." Maybe I should lend my mom one of my Rage Against the Machine CD's. Or how about Eminem's The Marshal Mathers LP? I'd pay to see to see what would happen next. :)

They don't make music like they used to. Thank God.

wtf?
You Black and White warez hunters don't give up, do you?

I hate you all.

You want the game? Come to my house. Then I'll punch you in the face. Repeatedly. Sure, it ain't the right colors, but "Black and Blue" should suffice.

Devils in six games
I'm reversing my decision. Those wily Devils are gonna retain the Cup. What's with my sudden change in my prediction? I don't know. Call it a hunch. Ever since I said the Avs were going to take it in six, I've had a feeling that the Devils were gonna prove me wrong. I guess it just goes to show you that I'm not a professional NHL game and team analyist.

Watch this, the Avs are gonna win the Cup and I'm gonna feel like a tard for reversing my decision. Whatever. Both teams are really damn good and the series could go either way.

Game 1's tonight, huh?

The post of nothingness
Sorry for the lack of posts "yesterday." Mommy decided to keep the phone modem cord for a very very long time for some reason. But it's not like you would have read much, anyways. I don't feel like giving you any links. TAKE THAT! Heh.

However, you can send Jake your love, for "today" (the 26th) is his birthday.

"What is this, Saved By the Bell?"
Hehehe! Kurt Angle kicks ass.

Guess you had to be there.

Quite a bit of stuff in the world of politics, eh? The Republicans couldn't "bribe" Jeffords (story 1 | story 2) from leaving the party. As a result of that, the Democrats own the Senate, which is considered Armageddon to oil drillers and Pro-Life Texans everywhere. And Bush got owned at Yale when he was the guest speaker at their graduation ceremony. Sucker. At least RPI had Bill Cosby. w00t w00t!

And on a completely different topic, how would you like to get your email from Mars? A bunch of smart guys are working on "Interplanetary Internet." I remember in CANOS doing some latency and bandwidth problems if there was a connection running from Earth to the moon.

And DON'T ASK ME FOR BLACK AND WHITE! What the hell is wrong with you? Read this for further instruction.

I'm done for today. Posting, that is.

my cousin: c yaz l8er j

Yeah. Later.

My trash stockpile
I still have this pile of refuse in one of the uncharted areas of my room. It's been there since I started moving my things around to make room for all of the stuff I brought back from RPI. It's kinda intimidating, since it contains some of the weirdest junk I mustered since... uh... the late 80's. Seriously:

A 26" self-sealing inner tube for a bike tire.

Year 2000 calendars.

A Precomputer 1000 with three cartridges: general knowledge II, sports trivia, and bible knowledge. I never played any of the games on the cartridges, only the games and stuff already in the Precomputer 1000. I remember coding in BASIC and playing Hangman on that thing. Wow, that was so long ago. Why the heck do I still have this?

Paper. Lots and lots of paper. This includes old magazines from January 1999.

Winter boots.

Your mom.

Stuff I received when I bought my Dell a couple summers ago. Anyone want the CD's for MS Work Suite 99? It comes with Streets 98! How about Lotus SmartSuite 96? Virus scanning software? Come on, none of this stuff is even opened! :) And let us not forget the awesome "Power Game pack" I got with my computer: Descent: Freespace (which would lock up my computer), and Rage: Expendable.

You can pick this stuff up tomorrow morning in my dumpster.

A pair of neato quotes
Because... uh... neato quotes are cool.

This first one I got from Keith:

"To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well
done. And to the C students, I say you, too, can be president of the United
States.''

--Yale grad President Bush addressing graduating students at his alma mater.

Quite thought-provoking, yes?

Now, the other one:

"What are the best things in life?"

"To Crush your Enemies,
See them Driven before You,
And Hear the Lamentations of the Women."

- Conan the Barbarian

Damn skippy.

Phone modems still suck
I'm downloading this huge-ass movie and it's taking forever (12 1/2 hours remaining at 1.7 KB /sec. wtf?). The movie itself is 98 MB zipped, and in case you care, it was a video that Wolfpack showed at E3 displaying the coolness that is Shadowbane.

I am so getting this game when it comes out this summer or fall (no announced ETA yet). How can you go wrong with a online roleplaying game where you DON'T have to camp or powerlevel to be able to "play," create bustling cities with economies, kill other players, and have huge mass-scale wars with other guilds and nations? It's paradise! And let us not forget the implementation of seige weapons! Long live the trebuchet (this screenshot is nearly a year old)! And there will still be months-long quests and new content every month. Check out the FAQ for more details.

Linky linky?
Shit. Today is almost over, and I have yet to post! I was gonna post something early this morning that pretty much said not to call me repeatedly early in the morning and then get someone to wake me up. So, I'll do it now: DO NOT CALL ME REPEATEDLY IN THE MORNING AND THEN ASK SOMEONE TO WAKE ME UP. Otherwise, I'm gonna toss you a verbal beating of a lifetime. Keep that in mind. Heh.

Now that I have cleared that issue up, how about some links? After all, nothing really happened to me through the course of the day that I feel is worth commenting on. Except that there's road work going on everywhere from my house to Concord. And everyone was driving like 5 MPH under the speed limit. It sucked.

But anyways:

* What happens when a cabbie recovers and returns a $4 million instrument? He gets a $75 check and no "Thank You."
* Any bets as to whether or not this old guy is a little bit messed in the head? Or maybe it's just something in the water...
* There has to be something in the water in Spain, too. People are doing the darnest things with rubber bands. Ick. Totally unprofessional. :p

Funny!
Right now, the first article headline that appears on the ZDNet Internet page is the "AOL: You've got a rate hike!" story.
Here's the intro to the article:

Time to cut back on online chatting? Beginning in July, Internet giant America Online plans to hike its subscriptions rate by $1.95 for its monthly unlimited use plan.

Uh... cut back on chatting? YOU HAVE UNLIMITED ACCESS!

Hey, I thought it was funny, and that's all that matters. ;p

And then there were two...
The Colorado Avalanche made the St. Louis Blues their man bitch in a 5-game series.
The New Jersey Devils totally outplayed and outsmarted the Pittsubrgh Penguins in a 5-game series, too.
Now they have to face each other for the Stanley Cup.
Only one team can claim the Cup. Who is gonna be?

The Avs have a lot of superstars, a very large payroll, and they've been trying to make it to the finals for the last five years. They definitely have the talent to win the Cup. They were the best team in the regular season, and Patrick Roy is just phenomenal. It also seems that the Avs have to win it; otherwise, all of their effort in acquiring all of their players and making those trades has been in vain. And a lot of their players' contracts expire after this season, too, so if thery're gonna win the Cup, this is when they have to do it. They surely can't keep all of their players, but that bonus money from getting the Cup will surely help.

The Devils are the defending Cup champs. They had issues early in the playoff season, but they are a well-oiled machine now. Plus, they totally smacked the Avs during the regular season, winning six of seven games or something like that. And the crowd finally realized that the Devils were still in the playoffs; they were pretty excited when their team took the Penguins out tonight. The Devils don't make mistakes, and the Avs aren't going to get many power plays.

My prediction? It's gonna be a tough series. :) The Avalanche in six games.

Story time
I got some somewhat dated links that I've been meaning to share with you folks. I guess now is the time for me to do it.

* How would you like to be the first to experience Brittney? It's not quite the same type of "interactive game" as Jenna Jameson's (heh), but I bet it will still sell lots of copies.
* Read the "Revenge of the Week" part of this sports article. Some professional baseball players player Everquest? No way! Then again, Ken Griffey Jr used to be in a Quake clan called... uh... damn, I don't remember... "Natural Born Killers" under the alias "Slugger," if my memory isn't failing me. Wow... Quake 1... those were the days. This link brought to you by Jake.
* Women are grown like grains over in Utah, since 30,000 Mormons have multiple wives. This may threaten Utah's Olympic hosting privileges. Keep in mind that this breed of "Mormon" isn't the same as those LDS dudes, either, which seems to be a common misconception. I think I said something like this in an earlier post. This story brought to you thanks to Jon.
* I saw this story at a few places. This is kinda disturbing in more ways than one. *shudder*

And as a side note, you know that search engine off to the side? It's not too good at doing its job. *sigh*

It has been mathematically proven that...
GIRLS ARE EVIL.

It's true, it's true.

Political stories day
Yup. I have more political news stories to put into your grubby little hands. I gave you two today already, how about two more? Sounds good to me, too.

* The Family Values Party - beacuse we need someone who is righteous, faithful, and who was chosen by God as president. Then the sinners and the blasphemous Pro-Choice people will meet their demise! People who desecrate "OUR BELOVED HEAVENLY FATHER HOLY LIFE-GIVING LAWS" (people with tattoos, smokers, and homosexuals are some violators) are not allowed into the party. Notice that the sites are hosted by AOL...

* Let's buy Greenland! That way, we can build a radar there to warn of any incoming cruise missles. Too bad China is on the other side of the world. Here are some neat quotes from the article:

It's troubling that a country whose entire population is comparable to that in the state of Wisconsin might hold so much sway.
What has Greenland ever done? Nothing. At least Wisconsin makes cheese.

Greenland has a population of about 60,000 people, who have the island's 840,000 square miles all to themselves.
Wow, 60,000 people have 840,000 square miles to play with. Those selfish bastards!

Like so much real estate, Greenland's value is its location: A lot of missile shots coming toward North America from Russia would fly right over it, or at least near it. The Pentagon understandably will want to chart their precise trajectories so its anti-ballistic missiles might blow them to pieces.
Or Russia could attack across the Pacific. I mean, Russia is only like 10 miles away from Alaska. :p

And if this global warming business turns out to be worse than expected, at least Americans will have somewhere to live.
On a big chunk of glacial ice that will slide into the Atlantic? Right...

This world is full of tube steaks.
I stole both of those links from Metafilter.

Break the walls down.
Yeah Brotha.

NEC commencement
I went to the NEC gradation ceremony yesterday morning. It was slightly different than what happened during my RPI graduation, that's for sure. I got there about half an hour before the ceremony started, and the total number of seats available paled in comparison to the seating in the Pepsi Arena. This is expected, though, since the graduating class at NEC totaled 170 while the number of people getting diplomas at my commencement was ten times that number. Plus it was outdoors, so I was able to secure a place to watch the ceremony without having to deal with parents and the heat and these robed guys handing out "I object" signs and pamphlets. I didn't know what these guys sought out to do at the time; I chose to ignore them and get a sweet spot under the tent and score a bottle of Poland Spring water. Woohoo.

One of the main things I noticed while I wasn't listening to various student speakers say about how much of a great time they had at NEC was the lack of diversity on this campus as opposed to RPI. The whole crowd consisted of a bunch of Anglo Saxons. There was maybe one group of blacks and those of Latino descent, but that was about it. It was kinda of unusual to me, since I was used to having half of the RPI campus be populated by every "minority."

The ceremony itself wasn't anything to write much about. I didn't recognize any of the speakers, but our idiot Senator Bob Smith got a gay award and said a few words. The "I object" signs were held high while he was on the stand.

Diplomas were handed out, awards were given, and then it was over. Much like my graduation, I couldn't find anyone I was going to meet after the ceremony despite looking around for about 30 minutes. There wasn't a predetermined meeting area, so I guess this was to be expected. Or something.

Yay.

I read today a story in the Concord Monitor about the "I object" event, and you can read it yourself here. Apparently Smith is the antithesis of what NEC supposedly stands for, and no one wanted him to be at the graduation ceremony. I guess it just goes to show you that if someone donates money to your campus, sometimes the "higher ups" have no choice but to kiss the donator's ass.

Fixing the national tax system
I found this amusing article over at Metafilter. Here's a small snippit:

The present system was "an abomination" that required changes to its "very structure".

" Not only am I committed to working on this issue, the President [George W Bush] is also intrigued about the possibility of fixing this mess," said Mr O' Neill.

One of the most important moves, he suggested, would be abolition of taxation on companies.

Um... abolition of corporate taxing? Excuse me? I guess you can tell our president is a Republican, and so are most of the cabinet members.

For your information, Paul O'Neill is the Secretary of the Treasury.

*sigh*
I had a nice post written up.
I click on a link in one of my email messages.
The IE window with my yet-to-be-posted post is used to show the page.
I cry.
I click on the "Back" button of that particular browser window.
Post is gone.
I cry some more.
Maybe tomorrow I'll try again. It's not in me anymore to try and rewrite it.
Plus I have homework due tomorrow.

A moment of silence...
For Alex Krycek, the character no one likes on The X-Files, is no more. Indeed, it is a sad day for us all.

Affectionately nicknamed "rat bastard" by many, referred to as "the man" by me, his life met an untimely end as he got a "justified" bullet to the head by the people he's been pissing off for the last six or seven years.

I thought he would survive throughout The X-Files, but then again, you gotta be amazed that he even lasted as long as he did (he's been around since the second season). I guess it was gonna happen eventually, but I was hoping later than sooner. :p Much later...

Hey, what ever happened to that Marita Covarubias chick? She was around for a while, and then I think Chris Carter forgot about her...

Yay! Spam!
What would I have to write if it wasn't for spam?

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By screening of email addresses, do you mean "remove all women from the spam list?" That's some great "technical ability" you guys got going on. Also, what indicated that me and a slew of other Hotmail users were interested in receiving this email? Right... But at least I can reply to this email and type "REMOVE" in the subject line and wait 48 hours for you people to verify that my account is still active for future spam. After all, it isn't possible with your best "technical ability" to make the process instantaneous and let a database or some web script remove me from the mailing list, huh? It doesn't say it takes 48 hours to verify my book order should I choose to buy three copies of it... I guess you can't apply the same concept to both processes. Heh.

I'm so awesome. :p